Vehicle door hinges are bolted directly to the white body structure. This structure is typically a panel stack up of an outer side panel, an outer stiffener, and a reinforcement stiffener with weld nuts. Current body structures use formed shapes in the outer stiffener to mate up to the outer side panel. The reinforcement is typically a bulkhead or doubling patch used to increase thickness locally and connect the sides of the outer stiffener.
When using common platforms with varying styling, situations have arisen where the platform design is narrow with wide styling. This situation can cause hard to form geometry in the outer stiffener and add unnecessary material and pillar width since the stiffener needs to be line on line with the side panel. Adding geometry that makes the outer stiffeners meet up to the side panel can also lead to a varying cross-section of the side sill, which is preferred to stay consistent.